Posts Tagged ‘Christian’

He delights in our giving Him glory because it is evidence of our excitement and understanding of Him, His plan and His purpose for all creation.

When we are excited and truly worship, it is because we are personally close to Him and something has been revealed to us about Him, we are agreeing with Him, and He loves to see us excited. That glory He receives is like a father being proud of his child as he lets go of the bicycle seat, and the child moves forward, because God has taught him, and he trusted, understood and conquered.

Like this:

So a couple weeks ago my family went to Disneyland. I didn’t go because of my back problems. I have a ruptured disc that I have been nursing for over a year and a half. They had a great time, but when they got home my youngest step daughter told me “did you hear what happened when mom went to the 7/11?”

No, what happened? I asked her.

Well apparently as she got out of the car a man sitting on the sidewalk said “change, bitch.” Obviously a great tactic to get money from people.

As soon as I heard this I had wished it was the 7/11 close to my house, so I could go there and look for this guy. I would have went there every day and cased the store waiting for him. But, of course it had to be a 7/11 more than 500 miles away.

Then I thought what about my 19 year old step son? Why didn’t he do something? He is a very soft spoken young man and I know that confrontation is hard for him. However, I told him the next time something like this happens to go and kick the guy right in the teeth, and make him apologize.

I know if I was there I would have grabbed that guy by the throat and slammed him against the wall before making him apologize. Actually if I was there it would have never happened. Cowards never do things if they feel threatened.

I know that if your a Christian you would probably chastise me for saying this, I’m used to that type of mentality from Christians. “All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to sit by and do nothing.”

So whats the worse that would have happened?

Well the cops would have been called and my shy step son would maybe have spent the night in jail. My wife and he would have been traumatized.

Fast forward a couple days –

My wife feels honored, vindicated, and proud of her son.

My stepson tells the story to his friends and is proud of himself for protecting his moms honor. His confidence is bolstered and he is on his way to becoming a protector of others.

See a man must enter this part of masculinity and conquer it or he will be afraid to tackle difficult stuff when he gets older. If he doesn’t learn to physically fight his identity is stripped away and he will never reach his potential.

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One of the things that bothers me the most about church is legalism and people being fake. This is something I guard myself against with a vengeance. I purposely make it a point to be as honest as possible with everyone I meet in church. If I were having a bad day and someone at church asked me how it was going? I would answer them with an honest answer, instead of saying. I’m blessed.

Whenever I do this I discover that most people don’t know how to respond to me. It is because they are used to people saying I’m blessed and anything different, makes them uncomfortable because we’re all supposed to be blessed all the time, because we’re Christians. But if we’re honest with ourselves. We know that that is not reality. So whenever somebody asks me how I’m doing, I really don’t believe that they’re be genuine in wanting to know about me. I think that they have fallen into the trap of “that’s what a Christian does” is to care about people. But that’s as far as it really goes with most people. so the reality is they really don’t care about people, they care about how they look instead. Because a good Christianshows that they care.

Now someone like me can just shake it off. However, let me explain to you an example of how this can really damage someone. Say, for example a young child, 10 or 11 is very shy. He or she is going to church with her mom and dad, and another child from the youth group is asked by the youth leader to invite the shy child to youth group. In this case the child is too shy to go by themselves. So now she was asked and feels like “somebody likes me.” She goes to the youth group and for a few times believes that “this person wants to be my friend.” However, she soon discovers that she is being ignored and wonders whats wrong? She soon feels that she was just invited by the church to get me here. Now the younger person has been damaged by a form of legalism. The young child doesn’t have a friend but has been manipulated into coming to youth, and either she stops going because he’s afraid of getting her feelings hurt or she falls into the trap of legalism herself. She soon learns to never really have a deep relationship with another Christian in church.

Both reactions are equally damaging. If she withdraws from church she will miss out on maybe discovering real fellowship and friendship with someone else. If she falls into the trap of legalism she never discovers the real Jesus.

Here is another trap that Christians fall into, they always say yes. Don’t do this! It’s sets you up for failure. If you are asked to do something at church and can do it, than fine. But if you can’t then say no.

If you say yes and are already overwhelmed with tasks and are unable to fulfill the request, the person who asked you feels slighted, you look irresponsible and your sending a message to the other person that they don’t matter. Learn healthy boundaries and in doing so you also teach them to others.

I’m sure I could go on with other examples, but if this is too long then you wont read it.

Now I know that people are people, and I don’t expect the church to be perfect until that great glorious day of Christs return. But if people would just be genuine and stop portraying that they have it all together then maybe others would see that we are just like them. A messed up person living by grace and loved by Jesus in-spite of ourselves.

CBN.com — Cliff is a man’s man. On the job he’s known as a go-getter and a very hard worker. He’s a good provider who loves his wife and kids. He’s well respected by his neighbors. Cliff drives a humongous four-wheel-drive pickup. He loves the outdoors and takes every opportunity for a little hunting and fishing. He enjoys a cold beer and a dirty joke. He does not go to church.

Ask him why he doesn’t go to church, and he’ll offer up words like boring, irrelevant, and hypocrite. But the real reason Cliff doesn’t go to church is that he’s already practicing another religion. That religion is masculinity.

The ideology of masculinity has replaced Christianity as the true religion of men. We live in a society with a female religion and a male religion: Christianity, of various sorts, for women and non-masculine men; and masculinity . . . for men.

Cliff practices his religion with a single-mindedness the Pharisees would envy. His work, his hobbies, his entertainment, his follies, his addictions, everything he does is designed to prove to the world he is a man. His religion also demands that he avoid anything that might call his manhood into question. This includes church, because Cliff believes deep in his heart that church is something for women and children, not men.

Cliff is not alone. Men have believed this for centuries. In the 1800s, Charles Spurgeon said, “There has got abroad a notion, somehow, that if you become a Christian you must sink your manliness and turn milksop.” Cliff sees Christianity as incongruous with his manhood. It’s a women’s thing.

CHURCH …A WOMEN’S THING?

We’re only in chapter 1, and I know I’m already in trouble with a lot of you. I can just imagine what you’re thinking: Church is not a women’s thing—it’s a men’s thing! It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? After all, a man and His male disciples founded Christianity, most of its major saints and heroes were men, men penned all of the New Testament books, all of the popes were men, all of the Catholic priests are men, and 95 percent of the senior pastors in America are men. Feminists have been telling us for years that the church is male dominated and patriarchal. Are they right?

The answer is yes and no. The pastorate is a men’s club. But almost every other area of church life is dominated by women. Whenever large numbers of Christians gather, men are never in the majority. Not at revivals. Not at crusades. Not at conferences. Not at retreats. Not at concerts. With the exception of men’s events and pastoral conferences, can you think of any large gathering of Christians that attracts more men than women?

Visit the church during the week, and you’ll find most of the people working there are female. Drop in on a committee meeting, and you’ll find a majority of the volunteers are women—unless it’s that small bastion of male presence, the building committee. Look over the leadership roster: the pastor is likely to be a man, but at least two-thirds of the ministry leaders will be women. Examine the sign-up sheets for volunteer work, prayer, Sunday school, and nursery duty. You’ll be lucky to see more than a couple of men’s names on these lists. One pastor recently told me, “If it weren’t for the postman, every visitor to the church during the week would be a woman.”